our undoing (and yours as well)
by altschmerz
Summary: Flynn, Eve, Cassie, and Jake meet Ezekiel's former MI6 handler, are told a lot of things that Ezekiel would rather they never have known, and subsequently decide it's high time the youngest Librarian knew exactly how much he means to them. (chapter 1/3 posted)
1. Chapter 1

decided to split this into three chapters, and i hedged a lot on how much of what this guy says to actually include, because it seemed needlessly upsetting, but decided to put basically all of the most upsetting bits in the second chapter. if you're worried you might be triggered or upset by it, please prioritize taking care of yourself, and you can easily skip the second chapter if you'd still like to read the fic.

warnings: adam was, as ezekiel's handler, a manipulative, emotionally abusive bastard. there are some not-so-nice things implied about ezekiel's childhood. additionally, the content of the second chapter could basically be called emotional/psychological torture, because adam says some truly vile things about ezekiel to the team in front of him. rated for this, and for language.

* * *

 _i've learned enough to keep my mouth shut_

 _i've learned enough to watch my back_

 _I've learned enough to become wallpaper_

 _and blend in with the cracks_

 _\- electric president, "ten thousand lines"_

* * *

England makes Ezekiel nervous.

It's not immediately obvious. Nothing about his everyday behavior changes. He jokes and lounges and smirks, breaks rules just because they're there to break, but Eve starts to notice it maybe their third time in the country. (England is ripe for preternatural nonsense it seems, so it's a frequent stop.) She sees it in his eyes flicking around over and over, like he's cataloguing threats, identifying exits. It's in his hands, too. Eve has never seen Ezekiel's hands so still.

Eve doesn't know how to bring it up. She doesn't know how to ask why it seems like Ezekiel thinks he's being hunted every time he crosses under the Union Jack. So instead of trying to get to the bottom of the odd behavior, she does what she can to compensate for it. Eve takes to walking right beside him when they're in English country, the straightness of her back and the strength in the set of her shoulders reminiscent of her military training. Whenever they're not mid-chase, running after or away from something, Eve puts herself between Ezekiel and the angles her NATO-honed skills of threat assessment determine to be the most difficult to guard.

It's unclear whether Ezekiel notices her changes, but _she_ notices the corresponding shifts in him. He relaxes a little after that. Not much, not enough to make Eve stop worrying, but it's something.

When she brings it up to Flynn, he is about as helpful as Eve was expecting him to be - not much. He, albeit after several moments of genuinely troubled conflictedness warring over his face, waves it off as not their business to confront Ezekiel about, pointing out that Cassandra hates hospitals and Oklahoma makes Jacob edgy for days after he's left. They all had their things - things that are better left not pressed on too hard.

For the most part, Eve concedes that he has a point, but it doesn't do much to soothe her nerves. She knows all too well exactly _why_ Cassandra and Jacob feel the way they do about those places and the possibilities that crop up in linking those to whatever Ezekiel's deal with England is strikes a chord of nausea in Eve's gut.

And then of course there's the matter of that second FBI file, the one Ezekiel had looked so stricken by when she'd mentioned it. MI6. An English organization.

With all of those pieces of the puzzle laid out in front of her, Eve concludes that there's no way to proceed without asking Ezekiel about it directly. That's the point at which she decides to follow her sense of caution, her respect for Ezekiel's privacy, and Flynn's advice, and let it be.

Unfortunately, skeletons have a way of falling out of closets whether you let them be or not, especially when someone helps them along by yanking open the door. Which is a polite way to put what happens the next time their job takes them across the pond.

The thing about being drugged is that everyone reacts to it differently. People will succumb at different intervals, and wake up at different times. Despite this, when Ezekiel Jones wakes up in a strange, narrow room, slumped on the ground, and none of his four companions have so much as twitched, he's got a distinct feeling it's not because of a chemical reacting to him differently. When he blinks his way to consciousness, he tries to take a look at his surroundings without making his return to awareness too obvious to whoever it was that took it from him to begin with. There is… not a lot of information to go on.

The room is, as he first noticed, narrow. The walls are ridged, and Ezekiel has been in and around enough storage containers to recognize the interior of one. It's fairly dark, the source of the dim lighting casting ominous shadows over the sparse contents of the unit not visible from this angle. There's something cold and heavy encircling both of his wrists, and Ezekiel shortly determines that he's been handcuffed to the people on either side of him - Eve on his left and Jacob to the right. They're both still out cold. Alive though, information gained from the pulses Ezekiel can feel, sluggish but strong. Then, as he gets bolder and lifts his head a little, Ezekiel sees him, and his blood runs cold.

Adam Bennet.

In the moments it takes the man to cross from his corner over to stand in front of Ezekiel, time slows to a crawl. Ezekiel watches Adam approach and feels sixteen years old again, standing in a safe-house living room while his world crumbles around him, just when he'd finally started feeling safe. Feeling like he had a home.

"We no longer have need of your… services," Adam says in the memory, blue eyes tundra-cold and granite-hard, face impassive with a hint of disdain. Ezekiel can still remember how his heart had lurched at that, how usually when he'd returned from an assignment he'd been greeting with a smile, a rare and coveted word of praise. Not that time. "MI6 is terminating our agreement. Do stay out of trouble, Jones."

They haven't seen each other since. Until now.

"You know," Adam says, looking down his nose at where Ezekiel sits crumpled against the side of the container, "when DOSA contacted MI6, gave us names and files of a group of dangerous criminals calling themselves 'librarians', I couldn't believe it was actually you. But it's hard to find a lot of people named Ezekiel Jones running around, and then the picture was definitely you, so…" He chuckles, shaking his head. Ezekiel tries to swallow but his throat feels tight. He can't remember the last time he was this afraid. "How long's it been, then, hm? Five years? Six? Seven?"

"What do you _want_?" It has got to be some kind of minor miracle that Ezekiel is able to speak at all, even though his voice is thinner than he'd want, shaking and sounding half a decade younger than he is now, sounding like the kid he'd been when last he and Adam spoke. He both wants Eve to wake up _now_ , and wants her to never see him like this, never have cause to meet the man in front of them now.

"Same thing I wanted before," Adam says like, despite his previous question, no time has passed at all. Like they're still on good terms. Like Ezekiel had never discovered the truth behind his handler's actions, never finally learned that every proud hand on his shoulder, every word of encouragement was a lie. "We have an opportunity to mutually benefit one another, here, Jones. So I'm ready to offer you a deal."

Far from being the most important part of his current predicament, it does nevertheless occur to Ezekiel, with a minute fraction of the zing of self satisfaction that he gets out of being right, that it now makes complete sense he woke up first. Adam wanted a chance to speak privately, it seems. Unfortunately, Adam either takes his lack of response as an invitation to continue, or doesn't care if he got one or not, and lays out his offer.

"All you have to do is tell me where I can find the Library, and we'll let you come back." The way he says it makes it sound like the holy grail, like an invitation to endless wonder.

Ezekiel blinks. "What?"

"MI6, Jones," explains Adam, rolling his eyes. "You can come back to your old job with MI6. Keep up."

Ezekiel doesn't need to think for so much as a second before he comes up with his response.

"Fuck you, Bennet. _Fuck you_."

Adam's face cycles quickly through smarmy, to confused, to shocked. Ezekiel could swear there was something affronted in there as well, a hurt response to his emphatic, immediate rejection of the proposal.

"Still an _ungrateful_ little bastard, are we? After all the organization did for you? All I did for you?" Adam asks, and his voice has gone from detached friendliness to vicious cold in an instant, drawing from Ezekiel a flinch he internally berates himself for even as he registers it's happened.

Years without seeing Adam, without hearing his name or his voice, and this much at least is still familiar, still as clear as yesterday. Years, and Adam Bennet has not changed.

"Very well," Adam sighs. Staring up at him from the floor, Ezekiel is uncharacteristically quiet. There's nothing he wants more than to run, but he can't get away, can't so much as stand. "We'll do this your way, then. How much do they know, Ezekiel?" The use of his first name is almost as sickening as the question, which sends a jolt of adrenaline down Ezekiel's spine. "How much have you told them about your old job? About _you_?"

Silence follows between them as Ezekiel doesn't answer the question. He doesn't need to. They both already know.

It takes thirty-two wordless minutes for Cassandra to wake up.


	2. Chapter 2

again, this is the one that's gonna be the roughest chapter to read out of the three of them. adam is not a nice man. it's not the worst thing, but it's not easy either, and i invite you to please skip it if you think you will be too upset by it.

chapter 3/3 coming soon, let me know what you're thinking so far!

* * *

 _they've got your name, they've got your number_  
 _they've got your hopes, your dreams, your future_  
 _they've got your loved ones by the throat_  
 _and soon enough they'll let you know_  
 _\- electric president, "ten thousand lines"_

* * *

If they hadn't been clear before, the tactical issues inherent in having all four Librarians and the Guardian all involved and physically present for a case are made exceedingly obvious by the current situation wherein sitting handcuffed in a neat little row is every person presently responsible for maintaining the magical security of the known world. Had things been even a little different, if things had not been _this exact_ way, Ezekiel might have pointed that out, poked at Eve's tactical decisions, as the one presumably in charge of safety. As it stands, he says nothing. Instead, Ezekiel Jones sits on the floor, the one man he would sooner die than have meet the four people with him right now pacing in front of him, and does the closest he's ever gotten to praying.

Somewhere deep inside him remains the childish hope that maybe Adam won't do it. Maybe Adam will look at the young man who used to be the kid he was responsible for and have a crisis of conscience. After all, there is no practical reason for Adam to tell the others anything. It won't benefit him at all to force Ezekiel to sit and listen while he told them how easily Ezekiel had once been so soundly tricked. The only possible motive he could have would be, put very simply, that he wanted to make Ezekiel hurt, as badly and as irreparably as possible. And even though he carries the memory of Adam speaking kindly one moment and shouting the next, even though he knows intellectually that his former handler had never really cared for him at all, Ezekiel can't help but find it hard to imagine Adam would hurt him.

(On purpose.)

"I'm sure this is going to come as no surprise to you," Adam says after several minutes of all present parties being awake and aware, ignoring their questions and outraged demands to be freed completely, "but you're keeping some pretty terrible company in the form of our friend here." Adam indicates Ezekiel with the barrel of the gun he's picked up and now holds casually in his left hand.

That small sliver of hope, of belief in the Adam he thought he'd known once upon a time, dies, and Ezekiel has never hated himself for anything more than he hates himself for the tiny, wounded flair of surprise. He knows better, now. He _should_ know better.

"So," their captor says, voice breezy and conversational, like he's enjoying a perfectly normal chat, rather than gearing up to tear down a good thing Ezekiel was finally starting to hope he could keep, the first good thing he's allowed himself to want after MI6. After Adam. "How much do you know?" Another gesture with the gun, and Flynn's voice moves with the weapon.

"Point that thing at him again and I swear to _god_ you will regret it."

There are two reasons Ezekiel ducks his head down when he hears this. First, because hearing Flynn of all people's voice, fierce and defensive, is making him feel something he would rather not let anyone see. Second, and far more sinister, is that with his comment, his impulsive protectiveness without regard for how wise it is to antagonize the gun-wielding kidnapper, Flynn has shown their hand. Flynn has given Adam some vital information, and Ezekiel isn't sure how his former handler will respond, but it's guaranteed it won't be good. To his slight surprise, lifting his chin after several moments of quiet, Adam remains perfectly calm.

"Ah," he breathes, smiling a little. He looks from Flynn, to Ezekiel, across the other three, and back to Ezekiel again. "So, that's how they got to you? The same thing worked for me." This last comment is directed towards Flynn. Adam's voice is as casual as if they're buddies swapping golf tips, rather than a captor and a hostage.

After a few moments of allowing tension to build, Adam expounds. "All I had to do was be a little nice to him, show him a little care, and he'd have done anything I'd asked." His eyes flick back to Ezekiel. There's something like pity there, glinting as Adam shakes his head. "I can't believe you could fall for this _twice_. You have to know they're just using you, Jones. You can't _possibly_ think any of them might _actually_ care about you." Noting something in Ezekiel's face, the pity grows stronger, turns mocking. "What, might _love_ you? Of course they don't."

"That is _not_ true, we-"

Cassandra is cut off by the sound of the hammer of the gun being cocked, a wordless threat punctuated by Adam's eyes on her now. Ezekiel's shoulders heave with breaths he struggles to control, and Adam's words echo around his ears.

 _I can't believe you could fall for this_ twice.

Love _you_?

 _Of course they don't._

"Now," Adam says theatrically, gesturing with the gun for emphasis. The sound of his voice makes Ezekiel's lungs catch again. "You're all going to sit there nice and quiet, and while we wait for DOSA to come take custody of you, I'm going to tell you a little story to pass the time."

 _You don't have to do this,_ Ezekiel thinks, holding his tongue in deference to Adam's order to silence. _Please, please don't do this._

Ezekiel Jones does not beg. He does not cower, or plead, or bow to tyrants, and Adam is no tyrant, just one mid-level MI6 agent with a talent for manipulation. But then, tyrants didn't know him when he was sixteen, didn't spend over a year training him, working with him, aren't the first person he'd ever thought he could count on. When they'd first met, Ezekiel had thought Adam was the answer to everything he'd ever wanted.

At first, he'd spent weeks, months wandering around Australia, reluctant to leave the country he'd called home all his life. It was hot, dangerous, and formed of a bracket of cities surrounding mile after mile of wilderness, but it was familiar, it was all he'd ever known. It's hard to explain to people who've never lived there, people who only know it from TV and postcards, but Australia will always be the place he dreams of, though he knows he can never really return. There's too many demons for him there, shadows that would dog his steps, never allow him a moment's peace or rest.

London, England was the cheapest flight to a major city he could find, and his fake IDs were so well done not many questions had been asked, despite being visibly younger than eighteen. If people can find justification to write off a problem or anomaly as not their responsibility, then nine times out of ten, they will. This, Ezekiel supposes, sitting alone on a plane to a new life, a city he'd never set foot in, is a double edged sword. Maybe, without that fervent human push to do nothing, to 'mind one's own business', things never would have gotten that far. But later, once things passed the point of no return, he may not have been able to make the clean getaway he did.

He may never have met Adam.

It's the story of that meeting that Adam is telling now. He's getting parts wrong, of course, but Ezekiel can't correct him without breaking the bullet-enforced rule of silence. Adam reclines before them in a folding chair, gun resting casually against his thigh, talking in a tone like he's recounting an anecdote to a group of friends. It's maybe the most eerie part of the whole interaction, and something deeply, deeply familiar. Adam could always manage to say the most frightening things in the most cordial voice, right up until he didn't. Ezekiel always, perhaps contrary to the automatic assumption, preferred the anger, the coldness, the disappointment and yelling. At least then you knew what you were getting into.

"It was so easy," Adam says with a chuckle. "He was so pathetically lonely, god, all I had to do was be a little nice to him, tell him he mattered, that I cared, and he was a tool in my hands. You take a messed up, hurt kid who everyone else has left behind and forgotten, and you can make a really good agent with just a little effort." He laughs again, short and cruel, and shakes his head. "Of course, you can never keep 'em long. Short half-life. Sometimes literally. Turns out people like that take a lot of stupid risks to prove a worth they don't have."

It's hard to tell who Ezekiel is more disgusted by in this moment.

There's the obvious option of himself at sixteen, dumb enough to fall for Adam's game. He'd really tried to hold onto his distance, to keep things from getting personal. He reminded himself constantly that this was _temporary_ \- he was working for the enemy, and he'd escape soon. But, and this is the part that makes his skin crawl with shame, he had never even tried. Ezekiel had been so wary of adults, of anyone with any kind of power, but more than he'd been cautious, he'd been a kid, and he'd been alone. The idea that someone might finally want him, that he might matter to someone, that he'd have someone to check on him if he was upset, throw a blanket over him if he passed out on the couch, it was too enticing to bear. And, as it turned out, too good to be true.

In competition against his former self, however, is Ezekiel as he is now.

Crying.

It was a losing battle once Adam got started. There were so many things Adam knew, so many things Ezekiel had confessed to him, about his family (or what passed for one), about Australia, about leaving, about how scared he was… The idea that this man Ezekiel had trusted so much, had looked up to, could use those things to hurt him now, to humiliate and tear him to pieces in front of the first good thing he's found since London, the cruelty in it is almost too much to bear. So he'd fought and struggled, held his breath and shut his eyes tight, but in the end, he lost. Of course he did. He always lost to Adam.

As he sits there, trying to at least keep his tears, his embarrassing lack of composure and stoicism silent, Ezekiel feels something break through the pain pulsing in his chest in time with his heartbeat. He wasn't expecting it at all, but there's no mistaking the sensation. A hand, wrapping around his. Eve. Eve's hand.

Without a word, Eve curls her hand under Ezekiel's, and threads her fingers through his, squeezing tightly. Shortly after, the same thing from the right, as Jacob lays his palm over the back of Ezekiel's other hand. From either side of him, the two members of Ezekiel's team who have the most of any of them adopted the roles of protectors, hold him as best they can. The contrasting natures of the harsh words coming from Adam, and the extreme gentleness in the way Eve and Jacob touch him, is the last straw. In a split esecond decision that it would be slightly preferable to make a complete fool of himself to Jacob than to Eve, Ezekiel turns his head sharply to the side, pressing his forehead to Jacob's shoulder. His back shakes and he bites the inside of his cheek, trying not to think about how Jacob can probably feel the tears soaking through the sleeve of his shirt.

Adam continues, and Ezekiel just hopes he can get out of this with some iota of his team's opinion of him - whatever may have existed to begin with - intact.

The way it ends mirrors the way Ezekiel's partnership with MI6 had ended. Adam gets bored. He continues for some indeterminate amount of time, until he decides there's something he would rather be doing, and turns away. There's a small table at the other end of the storage container with some equipment on it, which Adam seems to be headed for when Flynn moves. He launches around to grab onto Eve's wrist, undoing her cuff with a paperclip he'd pulled out of some pocket somewhere, yelling, "Now!"

Eve lets go of Ezekiel's hand and leaps to her feet, swinging the cuff in her hand like brass knuckles against the side of Adam's head. Adam drops like a rock in a river, crumpling into a pile on the floor. As she moves, Jacob pulls Ezekiel closer, ducking his cheek against his hair, hugging him as best he can given the circumstances.

"Just _kill_ him," Cassandra snaps viciously from Jacob's other side, and Eve shakes her head.

"That would be too easy," she says, yanking the unconscious man's hands behind his back and binding them far tighter than will be comfortable when he wakes up. "This… this piece of _filth_ will go to prison for a long, long time."

The rest is lost to Ezekiel, who no longer feels present in his body, losing awareness in and out. A door is opened to the Library, someone helps him to his feet, and out of the storage container where he watched the life he's built crumble around him and into a place he doesn't know how much time he has left to feel safe in.

Without responding to any of the words, the questions called after him, Ezekiel disappears into the Library, finally able to lose his composure with no one around to see.


	3. Chapter 3

i hope y'all enjoy the last chapter. i tried to keep everybody as in character as possible, but heightened emotional situations kind of led themselves to out of character behavior, it's human nature, so i hope it ended up working out well.

let me know what you think!

* * *

 _we've thought too much, said nothing  
we've heard it all, there's nothing new_  
 _we've seen the way to our undoing_  
 _and the way to yours as well_  
 _\- electric president, "ten thousand lines"_

* * *

Once the worst of Ezekiel's probably-a-panic-attack has died down, every sound of the otherwise fairly quiet room is amplified times a thousand. It's a pretty nice room, the one he's overtaken since the Library was returned to its rightful place. The couch folds out into a nice enough bed, sheets hidden under couch cushions during the day. Belongings could be stored inconspicuously in places not immediately obvious to anyone who might wander in.

(To be completely honest, Ezekiel has a suspicion the Library may have made it just for him, may not allow anyone to find it if he didn't want them to. Then again, that's silly, right? That the Library might be looking out for him, might be giving him a place he could feel safe. He still has his apartment, but more and more, this is where he stays. This is where he gets the best sleep he can ever remember getting.)

Now that the panic has subsided, that the shock of fear and anguish that seeing Adam again had brought on has ebbed, Ezekiel is left wondering what he's supposed to do now. There's no way things can go back to normal after this, after the way Adam had taken a sledgehammer to the image he has so carefully built up. Those people, the ones Ezekiel, in the part of his heart he won't ever speak of to anyone, wants so badly to impress and make like him, make want to keep him, they know things now they can't come back from knowing. He doesn't know that they can ever look at him the same way, ever talk to him like they had never met Adam, found out about the part of his life Ezekiel would most like to forget.

Ezekiel sits on the couch and lets his head fall into his hands. He can hear his own breath, rasping in the empty air. All his focus is on the section of carpet between his shoes as he contemplates what they must think of him now. What a stupid, naive, gullible kid he was, how easily fooled he'd been. What ifs fly around his mind at lightning speed.

What if they think he's using them, that he's a fraud and a liar?

What if they take Adam's side?

What if they think it was his fault?

He stares at the carpet and the words run on a loop. _What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?_

Round about the tenth repetition of that answerless question, a knock on the door startles Ezekiel out of the loop and back into the present. He sits and watches the door for several moments, excruciatingly aware of his own erratic breathing. He half expects the door to swing right open - he'd forgotten to lock it today. It doesn't, for long enough that Ezekiel frowns and calls out, "Hello?"

"It's Eve," a voice answers. "I'm here with Jacob and Cassandra. Can we come in?"

 _This is it_ , Ezekiel thinks. _This is when it ends._ "Sure."

Eve opens the door and walks in, then stops to take stock of the situation. Ezekiel… doesn't look good. He's sitting on a couch, posture hunched and defensive. His eyes are unfathomable, staring at a section of the wall near the door rather than look at any of them. Eve has had a considerable amount of experience reading body language, and right now, everything in Ezekiel's is reading like a wounded animal, afraid and in pain, bracing to be attacked again. These last few hours in particular, Eve has been exceedingly aware - more even than she usually is, even as she never really forgets it - of exactly how young Ezekiel is. He's strong and capable, more than able to take care of himself, and she genuinely bears a great deal of respect for him. But he is, nonetheless, incredibly young.

Of course, that thought leads to another, much worse one. Ezekiel is young. But, when Adam knew him? He'd been so much younger. He'd been a child.

For a hair of a moment, uncharacteristic of Eve in its fanciful wishfulness, she imagines being able to go back and fix that. To get him out before Adam had the chance to hurt him. Then again, if what Adam said was to be believed, and Eve has a sinking suspicion it was for the most part true, the damage began long before that. It makes her ill to think of.

Eve quickly comes to the conclusion that this is going to be one of the most important conversations she's ever had. Maybe not fate of the world important, but fate of her world important. These people, this place, they're becoming her world faster than she can keep track of, and it takes Eve's breath away. She gives herself a moment to catch it again, then sits down on the couch next to him. It's hard, in a situation like this, to figure out what to say. But nothing ever happens until it starts, so there's nothing else for it except to take a leap and hope the ground she lands on doesn't crumble.

"Hey Ezekiel." Okay, so, not the most eloquent start. Ezekiel, though, not Jones, that much is solid. All Eve can hear right now when she thinks of her youngest charge's last name is the way Adam Bennet's voice sounded, sneering it. This entire time, Adam never once called him by his first name, and even though it's small and superficial, Eve can't help but take any small step she can to distance herself from him. To say to Ezekiel _I'm not Adam. I won't ever do to you what he did._ "How are you holding up?"

"Holding up?" Ezekiel scoffs in a ghost of his usual easy drawl, but out of deference to his pride, no one gives such away. "I'm fine."

"I find that hard to believe." The challenge is as firm as it is kind. "You were tortured. People don't just walk away from that."

Cassandra, sitting in an armchair, and Jacob, leaning against the side of it, watch the way Ezekiel's face shifts and reacts to what Eve has said, and keep quiet. For now, it's best to let Eve handle things. They'll step in when they're needed.

" _Tortured_?" repeats Ezekiel like he can't believe what he's hearing. His voice wavers just a hair, though, and the look in his eyes is raw. "I wasn't tortured. C'mon. He didn't… I wasn't tortured."

"What that man did to you," Eve tells him, maintaining that same soft intensity, "was cruel, heartless, and without humanity." Ezekiel's shoulders give the slightest jerk, the only visible indication of how quickly he is losing control of his composure. "You were tortured, Ezekiel, and I am so, so sorry it took us so long to put a stop to it."

Now Ezekiel's eyes are shining, bright and wet, as he stares at that same patch of wall. Eve swallows, hand twitching a bit in her lap. She scoots a little closer to him and clears her throat.

"Ezekiel," she says, and all the push has gone from her voice. All that's left is the warmth. The depth of care she holds to avoid hurting the person she's speaking to. "Is it alright if I touch you?"

At that he does look at her, face confused around unshed tears. He shrugs one shoulder and says, "Yeah."

"You can say no," she clarifies, and Ezekiel's weird look gets weirder. "You've had enough of other people deciding what happens to you today. I…" Glancing over to the armchair, Eve's silent question draws twin nods from Cassandra and Jacob. "We would like to hug you, but only if you're okay with it."

Several silent moments pass before Ezekiel dashes a wrist quickly over his eyes and looks away again. When he speaks, it isn't with his usual voice, brash and sure of himself. This time, Ezekiel sounds almost shy. "Yeah. Yeah, it's okay."

Eve moves first, and she moves slowly. She wraps an arm around him, not pulling but rather allowing him to, at his own pace, lean into her. His forehead comes to rest against the connection of Eve's neck and shoulder, and she can feel him shaking under her touch. Cassandra and Jacob move after a pause. Cassandra sits down behind Ezekiel on the couch, leaning forward and curling her arms around his waist. Her cheek rests against his back, and she can feel his labored breathing. For his part, Jacob circles around behind the couch, once again leaning on the furniture the others are sitting on. He reaches over them to lay a hand on the back of Ezekiel's neck, fingers lightly brushing his dark hair. Jacob's thumb skims slowly back and forth, a repetitive motion and light pressure he hopes is comforting.

Ezekiel is surprised he doesn't feel suffocated, sitting there in their embrace. What he feels instead is sheltered. Shielded and protected, with their arms around him, able to smell Eve's shampoo, feel the weight of Cassandra's head resting between his shoulder blades and the callouses on Jacob's palm. Right now, Adam has never felt farther away. Like less of a threat.

"I'm-" tries Ezekiel, barely able to scrape the word out through lungs that feel restricted by embarrassment, guilt at putting them all in this situation. "I'm sorry."

"Hey." This time it's Jacob that speaks. His voice sounds harsh enough, angry enough, that Ezekiel can't help the strong flinch it elicits. Jacobs softens instantly, repeating more quietly, "Hey. None of that, okay? You did nothing wrong. _Nothing_."

"I stayed." Ezekiel's words are barely a breath, a puff of air. He doesn't for the life of him know why he's pushing the envelope right now, trying to make them mad at him. Make them admit what they really think rather than this ruse, far too gentle and kind to last. "I could've got away. I could have _left_ and I _stayed_."

"I stayed with my dad," is what Jacob says in response. "My whole life. I could have left a hundred different times, but I stayed. If Eve hadn't come to get me from that bar that day… I would still be there. Leaving… it's not as easy as people make it sound. And that guy made it as hard on you as he could. The things he said, the things he did, he made it hard."

"And he was wrong, y'know," Cassandra chimes in, giving him a little squeeze. "You're not bad, not any of the things he said. We think you're good, Zeke. And we _do_ love you."

"Cassandra is right," says Eve's voice from somewhere over his head, followed shortly by Jacob.

"We do."

 _What, might_ love _you? Of course they don't._

Adam's voice, for the millionth time since he was sixteen years old, springs abruptly into Ezekiel's mind. This time though, after the jolt of fear it always brings, comes something else.

 _Yes_ , he thinks fiercely, squeezing his eyes tight shut and focusing on the awareness of his… his friends, around him. _Yes, they do. I can't figure out why or how, or when they might give up and leave, but they do._

* * *

Flynn Carsen has an established habit of doing things in a way he thinks is casual but in actuality tend to land way West of that. Like now, sauntering in and reclining against a bookshelf at the edge of Ezekiel's vision. For a while the thief is content to let Flynn believe he's succeeding, until it gets just a little too pathetic to bear.

"Lurk much, mate?" Ezekiel says, not looking up from his phone. He's feeling more normal now, less like Adam had gutted him and left him hollow, but Flynn's presence makes him nervous. Everyone else has already been to talk to him, to clear the air and set things straight. Not Flynn, though. He's kept his distance. Until now.

Instead of responding to Ezekiel's sort-of-greeting, Flynn walks over to stand next to the table and says the last thing Ezekiel was ever expecting him to say.

"I'm sorry."

"Excuse me." The response is instant, kneejerk, and completely without thought. "Who are you and what have you done with Flynn Carsen?"

Again, Flynn ignores the joke and goes right for the jugular. "I'm sorry I didn't help you, Ezekiel. When we first met."

Ezekiel frowns. "Dunno what you mean."

Sighing, Flynn stuffs his hands into his pockets, and leans against the table. "I was doing some math, and the gala, the night we first met, it was… It was years ago, but I remember. I thought you just looked young, but…" He shakes his head, looks embarrassed of himself. Looks troubled, as well, in a way Ezekiel can't fathom. "You were a teenager. Sixteen, seventeen maybe. It was during your time with MI6, wasn't it?"

"Yeah," confirms Ezekiel, nodding and looking down at the game on his phone again. "It was."

"So," Flynn says, half word, half sigh. "Like I said. You were a teenager, and you were in trouble. I should've seen it, I _could've_ seen it. I should've helped you. I'm so sorry I didn't."

Completely at a loss for how to respond to that, Ezekiel just shrugs. "If you'd asked me, I wouldn't've said I needed help. I would've said he…" The name can't remain a spectre forever, a demon dogging his steps, so he forces himself to say it. "I would have said Adam Bennet was the best thing that ever happened to me."

A long silence overtakes the room. Ezekiel looks at his phone but doesn't continue his game, while Flynn looks at nothing in particular, until the youngest Librarian takes a risk by breaking the silence, admitting something that makes him vulnerable in a way he's sure he'd never have done before.

"It's funny," Ezekiel says in a tone suggesting nothing is funny at all. "I know he's gone. I know Adam is going away for a long time. Kidnapping, assault, et cetera, Eve already filled me in on what's gonna happen to him now. But I still don't… I don't think I'll ever be safe. Not completely, not with him still out there somewhere."

Flynn sighs, pushing off from the table and opening his arms. "Come here, kid," he says, beckoning with outstretched hands.

For the second time in recent memory, Ezekiel finds himself wrapped in a tight hug.

"I don't know how much this is gonna do, too little too late and all," Flynn says as Ezekiel is mid-contemplating how Flynn is actually a pretty good hugger. "But if that man ever comes near you again, I will kill him myself."

Flynn's voice is quiet and far more serious than meshes with his happy go lucky, jovial personality. It is, in a way that would make Ezekiel worry he was a bad person if he hadn't already given up on that years ago, the most reassuring thing he could've said.

After a pause, Ezekiel asks a one word question, slightly muffled by the fabric of Flynn's sweater vest. "...Promise?"

"I promise."

It's a time of firsts, Ezekiel supposes, as he takes a risk, and puts his faith in Flynn, accepting what he's said at face value. "Okay."


End file.
